Four months before Lucian
I am expecting to feel nervous when Jack arrives, but as I watch him getting out of his shiny black Jeep, with his bright hair and his expectant smile, I am filled with quiet, deadly anger.
We embrace by the front door, the back-slapping hug of old, though now it sickens me, and Jack inhales the air.
‘Something smells incredible. Don’t tell me it’s …
’
‘Yep. Mary made the pie.’
‘Mate, this is so nice of you. I’ve been feeling a bit low the last few days without Celia and Freddie.
I could do with cheering up.
’
He follows me into the library, fire now properly ablaze and chucking out heat into the room.
He sees the two empty bottles by the fireplace, my uncle’s decanter filled to the top with his favourite wine.
‘Look at that! This is a treat, a real treat.’
We sit opposite each other, a Chesterfield each, in front of the fire that is already far too hot.
Jack pours our wine – always the perfect host in my house – and updates me on his sad little life, no nearer to a settlement with Celia, fast running out of cash.
‘You only have to ask, you know that’ – words like sawdust, an adder tensing, waiting, retracting.
I watch Jack swallowing down the first few sips of his wine.
‘God, that’s good.’
Sticky Fingers is on the sound system.
Not a coincidence; the soundtrack of rape.
There are ten tracks on the album; ‘Wild Horses’ is the third one in, seven and a bit minutes before we get to it – I counted – and when it starts, when Catherine appears, young and so very beautiful, dancing with her arms held above her head, the last time either of us was truly happy, there is no more time.
I stand up, because it’s easier this way.
‘I know what you did.’
Jack looks up at me, confused by the gravity of my voice.
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Catherine. I’m talking about Catherine.
And what you did to her.
’
He does look a little scared then, just for a moment, before he’s on his feet apologising.
‘Mate,’ he says, ‘I am so sorry. We were so drunk. We didn’t mean it to happen, it just did.
’
This ‘we’ is the only ignition I need.
‘You raped her. You raped her when she was asleep.’
‘I did not! Who told you that? Catherine? That’s a fucking lie.
Catherine was drunk, we both were.
But she wanted it just as much as I did.
’
I know better than anyone his inability to resist a final taunt, the last word his holy grail.
And yet. The match is struck.
‘You knew how much I loved her. You of all people. And all these years you’ve said nothing; you let me think Catherine left me for Sam.
’
‘The reason we didn’t tell you is because we knew how you’d react.
It was a mistake, that’s all, a stupid drunken mistake.
’
There it is again, the expert needle that is this word ‘we’.
Jack and Catherine. Imprinted on my brain.
‘Catherine would never have had sex with you if you hadn’t forced yourself on her.
’
‘Believe that if it makes you feel better. But she and I know the truth.’
Fury is weightless.
I cannot feel my body as I walk around the coffee table so that I am facing him, my back to the blazing fire.
He does look afraid as I step towards him, no thought of what I’ll do, just violence in my veins.
‘Calm down, for fuck’s sake,’ he says.
I raise my hands, an instinct to hurt.
I grab the tops of his arms, squeezing so hard he shouts out.
‘Why do you need to be me so much? Everything I’ve had you’ve wanted for yourself.
Even Catherine. You took her because she was mine.
Because you couldn’t bear me to love someone more than you.
’
In those blue eyes fury, but also mortification.
Yes, you twisted bastard, I know exactly who you are.
He shoves me hard in the chest and I lose my grip, arms flailing as I try to steady myself.
He pushes me again, a violent thrust with the flat of his hand, and this time I’m flying through the air, flying backwards, and my head strikes the beam above the fireplace, a piercing, a splintering and just one moment of sharp, sharp pain, while Mick sings of the tears that we’ll cry and the living that we’ll do after we die.